Built for families
navigating ADHD.
A mastery-based online school designed around how ADHD brains actually learn - small group cohorts with body doubling built in, adaptive pacing, executive-function coaching, and a mentor who knows your child. ESA and state funding can cover up to full tuition for qualifying families.
What traditional school keeps getting wrong.
ADHD isn't a motivation problem or a discipline problem. It's a structural mismatch between how schools are built and how these kids learn.
Children with ADHD score lower on reading and arithmetic, earn lower GPAs, and are more likely to repeat a grade. Medication helps but doesn't close it.
Movement breaks, extended time, audio options - every one fought for. The friction itself is exhausting, for kids and parents.
Schools assume your child can plan, prioritize, hold things in working memory, and follow through. ADHD is precisely the delay in those skills.
The research, named.
Four design choices, each from a paper that calls ADHD by name. We didn't pick this shape because it sounded good - we picked it because it's what the evidence keeps saying.
A recent meta-analysis of K-12 adaptive learning systems found a pooled effect of d = 0.755 - with the largest gains (d = 0.842) for students with ADHD specifically.
Decades of research from Russell Barkley and others reframe ADHD as a delay in executive functions - planning, working memory, time management, self-regulation - rather than just attention. Effective school must teach these explicitly.
A study of mentoring outcomes for youth with learning disabilities and ADHD found significantly lower anxiety and depression, higher self-esteem, and improved interpersonal relations after sustained mentor relationships.
In a 2020 study, adults with ADHD completed 37% more tasks in parallel-work settings. An ADHD Coaching Association survey found 80% of clients reported significant improvements using body doubling. Cleveland Clinic explains this as the activation energy and accountability ADHD brains struggle to generate alone.
A school shaped around ADHD brains.
Every component is here for a reason - and the reason traces back to the research above.
Math, English, science, history - taught live in small group cohorts, mastery-based, on your child's pace. A handful of kids working together beats a 25-kid classroom, and 1:1 support is there when your child needs it.
A dedicated academic mentor, with 1:1 sessions when your child needs them. Real coaching on planning, prioritization, focus, follow-through - the skills schools assume kids already have.
Drop-in virtual rooms staffed by mentors. Body-doubling that ends nightly homework battles.
Filmmaking, debate, chess, esports, entrepreneurship. Where kids find their people instead of masking through another lunch period.
A real person on our team,
within one business day.
Tell us a little about your child. We'll confirm your state-funding award, walk through what's covered, and figure out together if Recess is the right fit.